Adam Thierer at Tech Central Station raises a valid concern about Hillary Clinton's desire to regulate video games:
The Clinton bill might best be thought of as a "hanging the industry with its own rope" regulatory scheme. That is, her bill would hijack the industry's voluntary ratings system and then use it against them (and retailers) should someone choose to sell a game with mature or violent themes to someone under the age of 18.
The problem with this regulatory scheme is that is will have two related unintended consequences. First, if federal officials threaten to use the industry's voluntary ratings scheme against them in this fashion, some developers might choose to abandon the voluntary scheme altogether. Second, if enough developers did abandon the voluntarily ratings scheme, it would likely lead to calls by Mrs. Clinton and others in government to impose a mandatory federal ratings scheme on this industry. And that poses serious First Amendment issues since the government (either the FCC or FTC, presumably) would be required to define what constituted "excessive violence" or "mature themes" in electronic games.
What makes this so troubling is that the video game's voluntary ratings scheme is outstanding and a real help to millions of parents like me. While most media sectors today have ratings systems of some variety, some of these ratings schemes are more descriptive than others. The video game industry's system is the best.
Link.
Bonus Coverage:
The cliche, "hoist by his own petard," comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
A "petard" was a medieval explosive designed for blowing open gates and barricades. The art of handling gunpowder and fuses was imperfect, and the petard sometimes went off too soon, blowing up the engineer. Source: James Rogers, The Dictionary of Cliches, (1985).
